If you have been accused of carrying on your business activity with the intention of defrauding your creditors or any other person / company for the any fraudulent purpose, then you need to take immediate professional advice.
Have you been charged with Fraudulent Trading?
Often when a company has been placed into liquidation, Administration or Compulsory liquidation then the director/directors maybe accused of bad management. It is often the case that the Director of the Company has been ignoring the correspondence from the liquidators OR has moved to a new house and therefore they have not had sight of all the paperwork served on them. It is not necessarily that they have criminal intent.
The legislation is quite prescribed – “When a company is trading fraudulently under section 214 of the Insolvency Act 1986, if it carries on its operations with the purpose of deceiving and defrauding creditors and customers; it is a criminal offence for any business and/or director to trade in this way. The key point to fraudulent trading, is the intent that directors have behind their actions.”
It can be very frightening for the person being charged as they will have no idea whether they go to prison and how that will affect their life and family members.
We can assist with reviewing the company’s financial records and it is likely that the role of preparing certain documents was outsourced to an accountant or bookkeeper which can be used to support to the defence.
It is possible that the directors of the business were looking to ensure that the business survived and therefore made some wrong judgements and decisions. The managers may not have been aware of the financial position of the company and the inability to pay. Many Directors of companies are optimistic about their business and they may have made decisions without having documented why those decisions were made in the circumstances AND may have had an investor pull out at the last-minute OR were reliant on certain sales to materialise. IF any of these acts were carried out with dishonesty then there could be an accusation of fraudulent trading.
We have written some simple guidance to point you in the right direction so that you are better equipped in understanding your options. Please follow the articles on the website marked Fraudulent trading.
Next Steps
If you want to find out anything further about this topic then please feel free to call on 0330 236 9930, 0330 236 9938 or 07961 116321. All conversations will be in strict confidence. You can also email vee@navigatebr.com
This article is for information and interest only. It is not a substitute for full professional advice, which will take in to account the specific and individual circumstances. Navigate Business Recovery Limited cannot accept any responsibility for any loss arising because of any person or organisation acting or refraining from acting on any information.
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